


what's in a name?

by and_hera



Category: The Underland Chronicles - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coffee, Comedy, Friendship, Gen, it's the underland cafe, this is so silly, tuc week 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26004511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/and_hera/pseuds/and_hera
Summary: Underland Cafe. It’s a cute little shop in the middle of the city. And, for whatever reason, there’s a girl who can’t be older than Gregor at the counter. Her hair is shockingly blonde and her face rather pale and are her eyes— are they purple?“Welcome to the Underland, what can I get for you,” the girl says, and she sounds far too dead inside for a twelve year old. Capitalism gets to them all eventually, Gregor muses, some earlier than others.or, Gregor makes some new friends.
Relationships: Ares & Gregor Campbell, Gregor Campbell & Luxa, Gregor Campbell & Ripred, Luxa & Ripred (Underland Chronicles), they're just all friends
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	what's in a name?

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i have never read the underland chronicles. DONT CLICK AWAY THOUGH! my dear friend [audie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninaxinej/pseuds/ninaxinej) explained the plot to me very well and i'm super invested in the characters now? and i saw there was a tuc week with an AU day and i couldn't resist  
> if this is ooc, yeah. sorry? idk what they are like in character. but the point is there is mostly no trauma and no children of war here and they're all humans and they all work at a coffee shop except for gregor who visits the coffee shop  
> i hope u enjoy! likes and kudos appreciated! if u want to hear about podcasts, follow me on twitter @lcvelaces!

The funny thing is, Gregor doesn’t even like coffee.

Growing up (he says this like he isn’t still growing up), there wasn’t a coffee machine. His dad always got his on the way to work at his favorite shop, and his mom was like him in the fact that she enjoys tea.

And tea is very easy to make. You just put water in a kettle and let it boil on the stove, pour the hot water into a mug and add a tea bag. For a while, Gregor thought there was just an endless amount of Tazo passion tea bags in one of the cupboards. (It was his mother, keeping them supplied.)

But he’s never been a coffee person. That’s his dad and his little sister— well, Lizzie is eight, so she doesn’t drink coffee regularly, but once dad brought her to his work to show her around and she got coffee on the way, so now she insists that she loves coffee— but Gregor and his mom? Tea. Boots is too little to really get it. 

So, when his dad decides to take Gregor to school one day for “fun dad and son bonding time”, Gregor is… unsure of what he’s supposed to order.

Underland Cafe. It’s a cute little shop in the middle of the city. And, for whatever reason, there’s a girl who can’t be older than Gregor at the counter. Her hair is shockingly blonde and her face rather pale and are her eyes— are they _purple_?

“Welcome to the Underland, what can I get for you,” the girl says, and she sounds far too dead inside for a twelve year old. Capitalism gets to them all eventually, Gregor muses, some earlier than others.

“Hello, Princess Luxa,” Gregor’s dad says brightly. At least he sounds enthusiastic. “I’ll have my usual, if that’s alright.”

The girl, Luxa, punches buttons into a machine that’s too tall for her. “It’s _queen_ ,” she corrects. 

“Yes, my bad,” his dad replies graciously. “ _Queen_ Luxa.”

Luxa nods. There’s something about how she carries herself, the way she keeps her shoulders back and chin up, that makes Gregor think that she might just be a queen like she says.

“Are you getting anything?” she asks, and oh no, she’s talking to Gregor! He doesn’t know what to get at a coffee shop! 

“Uhh,” he says helplessly, and his dad takes pity on him.

“Gregor will have a hot chocolate,” he says, and smiles at Luxa. Luxa nods, tapping at her machine again. Gregor doesn’t really like hot chocolate that much anyway, but at least he’s saved from trying to figure out how to order coffee.

Luxa gives his dad the price, and his dad pays, and Gregor heads to the end of the counter to wait for their drinks while his dad excuses himself to the bathroom. Surprisingly, Luxa follows him to the other end of the counter while a rough looking man makes their drinks.

“No customers around,” Luxa defends herself before being asked. “And I can’t work the machines yet.”

“How old are you?” Gregor asks curiously.

Luxa narrows her eyes. “Eleven. Almost twelve.”

“Oh, me too!” Gregor says. “My birthday’s in January.”

Luxa makes a noise that sounds like a _hmph_ and an _ugh_ combined. “Cool.”

Gregor blinks. “Uh,” he says, “why did my dad call you Queen Luxa?” He doesn’t know why he asked this question, but he is curious about this mean girl with purple eyes who is definitely too young to be working at a coffee shop.

She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms over her chest. “I’m the queen of the Underland,” she replies, as if it should be obvious.

“Right,” Gregor says slowly. “So, like, the queen of the coffee shop?”

Luxa nods. “My grandpa started it when he was younger,” she says, “and then my parents took over once he retired. And now I’m going to run it.”

“But you’re only eleven,” Gregor points out, not unkindly. “Why are you running a business? Isn’t that like, illegal?”

“Well _obviously_ I’m not running it _yet_ ,” Luxa snaps. _Obviously_ , Gregor thinks, only mocking her in his head. “When I’m sixteen, I’ll be old enough. For now, the store is in my name, but my grandparents are helping again until I’m sixteen.”

“So, you’re the queen,” Gregor finishes. “Why is it called Underland Cafe? Is there a reason?”

“Because,” a voice says, “Luxa’s granddad was obsessed with some old book series about an underground kingdom.” A scruffy guy scoots two cups across the counter. “One hot chocolate and one black coffee with extra espresso.”

 _That’s_ dad’s order? Gregor thinks, but he takes the cups. “Thanks,” he says. 

The guy salutes. He’s fairly tall, and he has a jagged scar across his nose. His nametag reads _Ripred_ , but Gregor’s sure that’s just some weird nickname.

This coffee shop sure seems to draw weird people in, Gregor thinks.

“Hey, you get our drinks?” his dad asks, walking over, so Gregor hands him his coffee and takes a sip of his hot chocolate. It’s funny— it doesn’t really taste like how he remembers hot chocolate to taste, but maybe it’s just been a while and he forgot. And it actually tastes pretty good, so who is he to complain?

“Bye, Luxa,” Gregor says as they walk out, and he waves. Luxa doesn’t wave back, and Gregor’s fairly sure he sees her mouth _queen_ before the door closes with a friendly jingle.

They don’t come back the next day, because Gregor has a test first thing in the morning and is trying to study as he walks to school and his dad has a meeting, anyway. But they come back the day after that!

Luxa is at the counter again. “Welcome to the Underland,” she says. “What can I get you?”

“The usual, Queen Luxa,” his dad says, “and a hot chocolate for Gregor.”

Luxa uses her machine, rings them up. This time, Gregor’s dad finds someone he knows from an old job sitting at a table, so he goes to socialize. And once again, Gregor and Luxa are standing at the end of the counter, staring at each other.

“Do you even go to school?” Gregor asks.

“Do _you_?” Luxa shoots back.

“Duh,” Gregor says. “I’m on my way there now.”

Luxa huffs. “I’m homeschooled,” she says. “And I’m smart, so I don’t have to do a ton.”

Gregor tries to be a good person. But Luxa is just _so_ stuck up! Why does she act like she’s a queen when she only has a coffee shop in her name? “You take yourself pretty seriously, huh,” Gregor says instead of voicing all the other not-nice thoughts he has.

“I have to,” Luxa says. “I have a lot to do.”

“Oh, don’t worry about her, kid,” the man with the scar says. Ripred. “She’s just too stressed out for her own good.”

“Am not!”

Ripred shakes his head from the coffee machine where he’s filling Gregor’s dad’s cup. “Poor kid. The weight of the Underland on her shoulders.”

“Is that your real name?” Gregor asks, because he kinda feels bad for Luxa, and because he’s curious.

“What, Ripred?” Ripred asks. He looks… amused? “I dunno, is it?”

Gregor shrugs. “It’s a kinda weird name.”

Ripred laughs, turning the machine off with a click and moving to the espresso. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Gregor.”

“Gregor. You don't have a completely ‘normal’ name yourself, eh? And what about Miss Luxa here?”

“It’s better than Ripred,” Luxa mutters under her breath, and Gregor looks at her with delight. She pointedly ignores his gaze. 

“I’ll tell you what, Gregor,” Ripred says, either not hearing Luxa or choosing to ignore her. “You guess my real name, and I’ll give you a free coffee.”

“I don’t really drink coffee,” Gregor says at the same time Luxa says, “Like Rumplestiltskin?”

Ripred puts a lid on the coffee. “You don’t drink coffee?” he asks, and slides the drink over with Gregor’s hot chocolate. “Well, a free hot chocolate, then. And yes, Luxa, like Rumplestiltskin.”

“Deal,” Gregor says, and he holds out his hand. Ripred shakes it, grinning.

The sixth time Gregor visits the Underland, he asks Luxa why her eyes are purple. She tells him to mind his own business.

The eleventh time Gregor visits the Underland, he wonders why his hot chocolate tastes like peppermint. He likes it, though, so he drinks it.

The fourteenth time Gregor visits the Underland, Luxa tells him that she wears colored contacts. She likes them, she says, and they make her look cool. She looks almost worried as she says this, so Gregor agrees that they do make her look good, and then she punches him in the arm across the counter.

The sixteenth time Gregor visits the Underland, he sees Luxa slowly slide into the splits from a standing position and learns that she’s done gymnastics her whole life.

The eighteenth time Gregor walks with his dad to school, he’s worried and a little distracted. He’s worried because his dad is worried about his work, and his mom is worried about the money, and Lizzie is worried about her schoolwork, and Boots isn’t worried but she just adds to the chaos. All this adds up to a lot of worry pushed on Gregor’s shoulders.

They don’t go to the Underland that day.

“Is your name… Paul?” Gregor asks, and he doesn’t mean it to be offensive but Ripred seems to take it as if he did.

Today is Saturday, the nineteenth time he’s been to the Underland, and he doesn’t have school, but he came to visit anyway. He asked his mom and she said it was fine, just for a little bit. He doesn’t have any money with him, but he isn’t really coming for the coffee. He doesn’t like coffee! He has new friends. Sort of.

“Listen, kid,” Ripred says, pumping espresso into someone’s drink, “if you want to insult me, I’m sure you can come up with a more creative way than that.”

“I think it’s pretty creative,” Luxa says, quiet enough that Gregor might have missed it, but he _didn’t_. Ha! He’s growing on her.

Ripred slides the drink across the counter to Gregor. “Drink up.”

Gregor blinks. “But I didn’t pay for anything.”

“My treat,” Ripred replies. 

“Hot chocolate, right?” Gregor clarifies. “You know, your hot chocolates are weird. They always taste different.

Ripred closes his eyes and breathes deeply. “You’re not the brightest, kid,” he says fondly, and Gregor doesn’t know _what_ he means by that, but he nods. “Yeah. That’s hot chocolate.”

Gregor takes a sip. It’s good, but it tastes different from the last two, he’s _sure_ of it.

Whatever. He keeps drinking it.

“Who’s this?” someone new asks, and a tall man (taller than Ripred) walks behind the bar, tying an apron around his waist. “Is he your… friend, Queen Luxa?”

Luxa blushes, and her face turns _very_ red since she’s so pale. “No!” she replies hotly. “This is my… this is Gregor. He’s been coming to the Underland lately.”

The guy smiles. He looks nicer than Ripred, less scruffy. His voice is softer. “I’m Ares,” he says. “Nice to meet you, Gregor.”

Gregor smiles back. “Nice to meet you,” he says. “So you work here, too? I’ve only ever seen Ripred and Luxa.”

“Well, kid,” Ripred says, and he starts to untie his apron, “my shift’s all done for today. Ares is taking over for me.”

Gregor looks at the clock on the wall, and it reads 10 a.m. on the dot. “Wait!” Gregor says before Ripred exits through a door at the back of the counter. “Is it… Randy?”

“Oh my fu- _fricking_ God,” Ripred mutters. “No, my name is _not_ Randy!”

Ripred leaves, but he shakes his head fondly as he goes, so Gregor knows he’s not actually upset by this.

“It says his name is Ripred on his nametag,” Ares says, sounding a bit confused, so Gregor explains that he’s trying to figure out Ripred’s _real_ name. You know, since he’s so obviously making up a super edgy nickname.

“It’s obvious, isn’t it,” Luxa says sarcastically, 

Ares looks at Luxa, and then looks at Gregor, and shrugs. “Well, I wish you luck,” he says.

“Thanks!” Gregor replies.

The twenty-first time Gregor visits the Underland, he’s in a rush on his way to school. “I bet it’s something stupid and you’re overcompensating with your edgy nickname,” he says, just catching his breath since he ran down to the cafe. “I bet your name is like, Sammy. That’s a dumbass name. I bet it’s-”

“Kid,” Ripred says, “ _please_ stop talking. Here’s your drink. Get to school.”

Gregor pauses. “ _Is_ it Sammy?”

“No!”

One day, Gregor realizes that he hasn’t been paying for his drinks for a while. His dad doesn’t usually take him as much as he wanted to, since his dad is busy with work and simply can’t wait for Gregor to get ready to walk with him, so every time since, Ripred and Luxa have made his drinks for free.

“Luxa,” he says on a Sunday night, “why don’t I have to pay?”

Luxa immediately looks away like she’s been called out. “You never really noticed. And I don’t mind, I guess.”

Gregor smiles, a little. “Thank you.”

Luxa shrugs, angrily. She always tries to look angry when she’s feeling something else.

“Why are you always at work?” Gregor asks. “You’re here in the mornings and you’re still here now.”

“The Underland is in my name,” Luxa says, like it should be obvious. “I’m working. And I don’t stay all day. I work the morning shifts and homeschool during the afternoon and come back for the evening.”

Gregor squints. “I’m so sure that’s illegal,” he says.

“Not for a queen,” Luxa replies.

“Why are you the queen?” Gregor asks, not for the first time. “Why not your grandfather? Or your parents?”

Luxa looks away, but not in an angry way this time. In a sad way. “My parents died in a car accident a year ago,” she says.

“Oh,” Gregor says. “I’m really sorry.”

“They left me the coffee shop.” Luxa sighs, and jumps down from where she’d been sitting on the counter. That probably wasn’t proper etiquette, but there’s only one other person besides Gregor in the cafe, anyway. “I take care of myself. And my grandma and grandpa. And most things.”

Gregor doesn’t know what to say to this. He’s been through a lot in his life, but Luxa- Luxa is _sad_. He knows how to stop Boots from crying, and he knows how to make Lizzie smile when she’s upset, but Luxa is sad all the way down.

“You’re not allowed to make the drinks, right?” Gregor asks.

“No. Why?”

“Do you know how to make them?”

Luxa raises an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Teach me to make you something,” Gregor says, and he hops over the counter to join her. This is the first time he’s stood on the same side of that counter as Luxa.

Luxa blinks once, then twice, and then she nods slowly. “Okay,” she says, and then she smiles.

Ares has to come help them when they get the remains of a caramel cappuccino all over the freshly cleaned floor, but overall, it goes swimmingly.

“Is it Mike?”

“No. My name is not Mike.”

“Will you ever give it a rest?” Ares says dryly, just starting his shift. Ripred’s on the other side of the counter now, next to Gregor, supposed to be leaving to go someplace or other but instead being grilled by an eleven year old on what his name is.

“I’ll give it a rest when Gregor finally finds out the two different things I’ve been keeping from him,” Ripred replies.

Gregor whips his head around to face him. “ _Two_?” he says.

“Ripred has not made you a hot chocolate once,” Luxa says from her spot at the machine. “He’s been using you as a taste tester to see which of his creations taste the best.”

Gregor’s jaw drops. “What?” he asks.

“Yeah, sorry,” Ripred laughs, and he ruffles Gregor’s hair. “Hey, you were getting it all free. It wasn’t your loss.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Gregor says, but now that he thinks about it, this makes a lot more sense. “Is _that_ why I tasted peppermint in there once?”

Ares almost drops the coffee pot. He tries to hide his grin, but fails. 

Ripred rolls his eyes. “Yes, kid,” he says. “And there was definitely caffeine in some of those drinks. I don’t know how you didn’t notice.”

“I can’t believe this,” Gregor says. “This makes a lot more sense.”

Luxa clears her throat. “Gregor?” she says politely. “Are you going to ask what the second thing Ripred has been keeping from you is?”

“Well, it’s his name, right?” Gregor says. “I assume it’s his real name, and I’m working on that one.”

Ares stifles a laugh. He slides a black coffee across the table and calls out “Erika!” A woman, presumably Erika, comes and grabs the drink. “Ripred,” Ares says, “just tell him.”

“Tell me what?”

“Fine, fine,” Ripred relents. “It’s been like, weeks. Kid, my name is literally Ripred.”

Huh? His name is _actually_ Ripred? Who names their child Ripred? What kind of name is that? “What?” Gregor says, unable to really think about it. In the last minute, he’s learned that he’s been an unaware taste tester for a coffee shop and that one of his friends actually has the weirdest name in the world. It’s a lot to process.

Luxa giggles, hiding her smile behind her hand. “Finally figured it all out, Gregor,” she teases. “You’re our great taste tester, and also you’ve been duped by a guy named Ripred.”

“Okay, _Queen Luxa_ ,” Ripred shoots back, and Luxa sticks her tongue out at him.

Gregor laughs, then, and he finds that he’s happy. He’s drinking his free hot chocolate- well, shoot, it isn’t really hot chocolate, is it? Whatever. He’s with his new friends, and it’s a nice winter day, and he’s in a coffee shop called the Underland.

Really, what could be better?


End file.
